Germany

Executives from Alstom, the Swedish pension fund AP4, Deutsche Bank, and the French pension fund ERAFP joined finance ministers for an informal climate ministerial discussion about carbon pricing during this year's World Bank Group/IMF Annual Meetings. After the meeting, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank Group's vice president & special envoy for climate change, described the conversation and some of the takeaways.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Warsaw to attend a conference jointly organized by the Polish and Turkish Central Banks (“Polish and Turkish Transitions: Achievements and Challenges Ahead”) on the occasion of 600 years of diplomatic relations between Poland and Turkey. Six centuries of (predominantly friendly) relations is indeed worthy of commemoration, but for our Polish hosts another anniversary was of even greater importance: 25 years ago, Poland was the first country from the former Communist Block to embark on the transition towards democracy and market economy. For Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries that joined it as new members of the European Union 10 years ago, this transition laid the foundation for a remarkable economic, cultural and political revival as Indermit Gill and I have argued in Golden Growth. Indeed, many in Poland would agree with the Economistthat Poland has not had it as good as today ever since it was the preeminent Central European power some 500 years ago.

The great-power G8 have been bickering about geopolitics, the economic G20 have been fretting about growth, and the aspiring G24 have been jostling for policy influence. But this summer’s ultimate contest in international relations has focused instead on the elite G32: the group of 32 countries that sent the world’s top-performing soccer teams to the final brackets of the World Cup tournament.

Global rivalries based on fine-tuned football finesse – not dominance in diplomacy or brute force on the battlefield – framed this summer’s highest-profile competition for international supremacy.

Amid the lengthening late-summer shadows that herald the final days before the September rentrée, thoughts of the midsummer marathon surely warm the memories of World Cup-watchers who recall the thrills of the June and July festivities before the JumboTron – with throngs packing city squares worldwide, as well as filling the World Bank Group's vast Atrium (and television hideaways all around the Bank) on game days.

The tournament’s most dramatic highlights – the agility of goalkeepers Guillermo Ochoa of Mexico and Tim Howard of the United States; the spirited hustle of underdogs like Ghana and Croatia; the epic 7-1 shellacking suffered by humbled host-country Brazil; the heart-stopping offside call against Argentina that nullified an apparent final-match goal – will deservedly dominate fans’ conversations as they await the next World Cup spectacular. And videos of the overtime heroics of two substitute players – André Schürrle, who made a picture-perfect cross to Mario Götze, who seamlessly slid the ball from his chest-trap downward for a left-footed volley past Argentina’s goalie Sergio Romero – are destined to be replayed forever.

A decade in the making, victory was patiently built through the Deutscher Fussball-Bund’s national plan that reportedly cost a billion euros or more – creating a coordinated national system of youth leagues, sports facilities, training regimens and individualized skill-building for players selected to advance toward the Bundesliga. Insightful long-range planning, born of adversity, paved the way to success: Germany’s football establishment realized that its system needed a sweeping overhaul after being soundly defeated in 2000, when Germany was knocked out of the European Championship without winning a single game. Germany had not won the World Cup since 1990, but the newly refocused German football system marshalled its long-term resources. After years of sharpening its competitive edge, Germany's hyper-efficient system has now earned the sport’s ultimate prize.

In January, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim urged the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos to look closely at a young, promising form of finance for climate-smart development: green bonds. The green bond market had surpassed US$10 billion in new bonds during 2013. President Kim called for doubling that number by the UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit in September.

Just a few days ago—well ahead of the September summit—the market blew past the US$20 billion mark when the German development bank KfW issued a 1.5 billion Euro green bond to support its renewable energy program.

Last week the New York Times featured an editorial suggesting that the World Bank should become a remittance center. Remittances are the "largest and arguably most effective antipoverty effort in the world.....financed by the poor themselves...,” it stated. “But the cost to transfer those billions is likely to rise soon...[as] big banks are leaving the money-transfer business, including Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase."

"If banks can’t profitably transmit remittances — and won’t do so as a low-margin courtesy — then other secure, low-cost options must be found. One solution would be for the World Bank to become a remittance center.”

Football, the beautiful game, galvanizes people from young to old and North to South in a way that no other sport or entertainment can match. Last Sunday’s final was the most watched event in human history with an estimated 1 billion viewers (many of which, in South and East Asia, tuned in well into the night). What we experienced over the past four weeks has been described by some as the closest thing to a world religion: everybody watches it and worships it; everyone has an opinion and many believe that winning the World Cup is one of the greatest achievements a country can aspire to. No wonder that even the Popes seem to care. John-Paul II once pointedly said that “amongst all unimportant subjects, football is by far the most important.”

I knew there was something different about Carbon Expo this year as I looked up during the opening ceremony and noticed the room was packed, with standing room only for late arrivals.

That is when I first asked myself: I know why I am here, but why are you here? I felt like a veteran carbon warrior among a sea of young fresh-faced carbon players.

I started coming to Carbon Expo in 2004, and this year, for the first time, there are plenty of people I don’t recognize. So today I took some time to ask people what they were doing here and why there seems to be a growing interest in carbon markets.

About 80 government representatives from more than 30 countries just concluded the 9th Assembly of the Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) – three days of rich discussions on various domestic policy instruments that put a price on carbon, such as emissions trading systems (ETS), carbon taxes, and payments for emission reductions. At the same time, private sector firms are arriving in Cologne to attend Carbon Expo which runs until the end of the week.

A timely “rendezvous” between the two sectors – public and private – took place today on the subject of carbon pricing policies. The event, hosted by the World Bank’s PMR, the International Finance Corporation, and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), invited leading private firm and government representatives to discuss the initial findings of a study by the PMR and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), which interviewed three companies – Rio Tinto, Shell, and U.S. utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) – on how they are preparing for a carbon price.

The transport sector contributes between 5 and 10% of gross domestic product in most countries, so the question of how to integrate transport networks for sustainable and inclusive growth is a crucial one.

And that is precisely one of the main topics that we discussed at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig during a session on Integrating Transport Networks for Sustainable Growth and Development. The panel also included Morocco’s Vice-Minister of Transport; the Head of Transport from the Latin America Development Bank (CAF), and the CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG.

The first unexpected development happened when the moderator showed up with a fifteen-minute delay, having been trapped… in a Deutsche Bahn train stopped on the tracks between Berlin and Leipzig following an unfortunate encounter between a bulldozer and a catenary cable. To be fair, the incident had little to do with the quality of the railway service and was quickly resolved. That is what resilient transport is about.